In a conventional home networking technology, communication means are installed in various devices such as power meters and household appliances as well as in information processing apparatuses such as personal computers (PCs), image receivers such as television sets (TVs), and recorders such as hard disk recorders (HDRs). Telecommunications carriers, energy suppliers and others that possess infrastructures relevant to communications, electricity and the like provide services of restricting usage of devices by using the communication means installed in various devices in the home networking technology.
For example, a user of a service for restricting usage of an Internet-accessible PC may request a communications carrier to set a uniform resource locator (URL) of a site to which the user wants to restrict an access. Alternatively, when the access restriction is set on the user's side, the user may set, by using a function provided by the PC, the URL of the site to which the user wants to restrict an access.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 9-152990, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2006-203507 and Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2009-5030 disclose related techniques.